On this place there was a black powder factory since XVI century, owned by Duke Alfonso I d'Este in order to supply his own army. During the XIX century the working process began in the millstones hall, where raw materials were pulverized toghether, then in the granulating house the powder was transformed in granules, which were polished and finally dried into a drying kiln. During the Napoleonic age the factory was enlarged and the production highly increased. It was built a new drying kiln (16 mt long) usually called "Napoleona"; this is the oldest survivor building of the entire complex, quite similar to a Greek cross chapel. In 1861 it was decided to sell the plant, after a big explosion occurred. During the following fourty years the factory went from hand to hand, without investments and renovations. Then, in 1901, the entire powder factory was took over by S.I.P.E. (Società Italiana Prodotti Esplodenti - Italian Explosives Company), managed by a joint venture with "S.A. Dinamite Nobel" company, called "S.I.P.E. Nobel". Thus the complex knew a big enlargement/modernization, becoming what we can see today. Main productive halls were placed inside four parallels two-storey buildings with a colonnade row at the base, linked together by some aerial passages. During the Great War the factory worked night and day, as one of the biggest explosives plant in the Country. But not enough bigger: in the 30s new buildings were built, mostly of them for services purpose (dressing rooms, toilet blocks, canteen, archives, offices, etc…). In 1941 were putted on stream a modern munitions fuses plant and a charging hall for naval mines. Two years later the industrial complex was almost totally destroyed by air bombing. Until the 70s it was manufactured mostly dynamite. In 1973 S.I.P.E. was took over by the Italian chemical colossus S.N.I.A. Viscosa, which improved nitrocellulose production instead of dynamite. A French explosive company called S.N.P.E. acquired the complex in 1992, to manufacture nitrocellulose. A few years later every activity definitively ceased.